Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

Parish church in Bucknell, built in the 12th and early 14th centuries, considerably restored and partly rebuilt in 1870. The building is constructed of roughly coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, with slate roofs featuring ornamental ceramic cresting and foliated iron crosses to the gables.

The church comprises a nave with a western bell turret and spire, chancel, north aisle, organ chamber and vestry, and south porch. The majority of the visible architectural character dates to the 1870 restoration, which was carried out in an Early English style.

The bell turret is constructed of oak shingles and is surmounted by a slated spire with a brass weathercock. The turret has shuttered openings to the belfry and a clock made by Bezant of Hereford, positioned beneath a gabled canopy on the south side.

The south side of the nave has two late 19th-century windows with bar tracery to the right of a contemporary gabled porch, and a single broad cusped lancet to the left. The west wall has two late 19th-century stepped buttresses flanking a window with bar tracery, hoodmould and head-stops. The lean-to north aisle of 1870 has paired broad trefoil-headed lancets to the right and a window with bar tracery in the gable breaking the eaves to the left, with a west window of two lights with plain bar tracery. The lower vestry to the east has a pointed north doorway and a segmental-headed three-light east window.

The chancel contains a blocked single-chamfered pointed south doorway, probably of the early 14th century, and a roughly contemporary window of two broad cinquefoil-headed lights above to the right. A late 19th-century three-light east window with bar tracery, hoodmould and head-stops is also present.

The interior contains arch-braced collar beam roofing in the nave, arranged in five bays with three sets of purlins and two tiers of quatrefoil windbraces, probably of the 15th century but considerably restored in the late 19th century, with four carved 19th-century heads to each side. A moulded tie beam supports the third truss from the east, and late 19th-century braced timber structure supports the bell turret in the western bay. The chancel has a similar roof structure in three bays.

The nave arcade comprises three bays with circular piers and stiff-leaf carving to the capitals. Similar Transitional-style carving appears on the responds and corbelled responds of the pointed chancel arch, which has a hoodmould with foliated label-stops. Painted legends reading "LORD I HAVE LOVED THE HABITATION OF THY HOUSE AND THE PLACE WHERE THINE HONOUR DWELLETH" are positioned over the arcade, and "WORSHIP THE LORD WITH HOLY WORSHIP" appears over the chancel arch.

A restored pointed recess in the north wall of the chancel probably served as an Easter sepulchre. The font is tub-shaped and Saxo-Norman in origin, featuring flat carving of irregular interlaced cords and a bearded human head on the east side, with a 19th-century Transitional-style plinth and base. The communion table is partly 17th-century. Other fittings and furnishings, including pews, altar rails and the stone pulpit, date mainly to around 1870. Encaustic tiles and late 19th-century stained glass are present in several windows, with the east window dated 1870.

The church contains wall memorials to Harriet Sitwell (died 1827) and Anne Sitwell (died 1842) on the north side of the north aisle. Three late 18th and early 19th-century benefactors' boards are positioned at the west end of the church, one dated 1838 and another 1839. A chest in the choir vestry is inscribed "WW 1807". The 1870 restoration cost £2000.